Hanging with the homemade Baja Racer

Looking for all the world like Action Man made real, all perfect teeth and hair, and green military jump suit, John B Rogers Jnr, ex-sniper in the US Marines, former hedge fund guy, now CEO of Local Motors, turns casually to me as we approach our first jump in this homemade Baja Racer at 50mph and says calmly: "Just keep your head back against the headrest. We are going to fly about 15 feet in the air and travel about 75 feet." And with that, he keeps his foot flat on the gas, and the Local Motors Rally Fighter, a car designed and built by a committee of people like you, launches itself up, up into the warm Arizona afternoon on its maiden voyage of the day.

Words by Pat Devereux
Photography by Daniel Byrne

This article was originally published in the November issue of Top Gear magazine

As we hang in the air, it's tempting to describe this as a leap of faith, as the car is still some way from being finished - its interior makes the wire-strewn time-travelling De Lorean in Back to the Future look neat and tidy. So to expect it to touch down without incident or fireball might initially seem unreasonable. But as this world's-first ride in the Rally Fighter is happening after a day of looking at the car and the whole unique business model that allows it to exist, I'm actually not too worried. Jay, as his friends and colleagues call him, has done his homework in the boardroom and out on the trails. It should land just fine...

Started three years ago on a budget that wouldn't pay for the design of the wheelnuts on a new Ford truck, the idea behind Local Motors is brilliantly simple: allow car buyers to design and build the car of their dreams. The innovative bit is not really the fact that the whole of the design process is online and open to the public to comment on, although that is a key part of the whole venture, it's how Local Motors has plotted a course through the legal rulebook to allow the cars to be built and driven on public roads.

Without getting too technical, if owners build their cars themselves out of government-approved components, they are legally allowed to drive them on the roads, just like any other car. So what Local Motors has done is create a facility where buyers can build their Rally Fighters under the supervision of LM experts. 

To make it all work logistically and financially, for now they are set to build just the Rally Fighter at the dedicated facility in Phoenix. But Jay reckons the same site will ultimately be able to offer up to four models that its prospective customers have told them, through the Local Motor's online system, they want to build and own. Likewise, there is only one microfactory at the moment, but several more are slated to get going in the US once this one goes online in November.

The process by which the next cars and microfactory sites will be chosen will be very similar to the one used for the Rally Fighter. Lots of people submit designs, the community votes for their favourites, and the one that makes the most sense to Local Motors gets the green light. There are built-in algorithms to stop people gaming the system by organising Facebook groups to back their designs and prevent first-comment idiots wasting everyone's time, plus people who have a track record in providing useful critical comments are scored more highly.

"It's not a big Kum-bay-yah session when it comes to building cars," says Jay. "There are people who really speak for a genre, and there are other people who speak against a genre legitimately." That's a polite way of saying shut up if you haven't a clue what you're talking about.

The Rally Fighter, designed by Sangho Kim, who has recently been hired as a designer by GM, was chosen as the company's first car when it became one of the top seven designs, out of 7,000, on the site. "We looked at all the proposals, and several of them were for building a better version of an existing type of car," says Jay. "That's not what we do here. If you imagine all the current cars on sale as rocks in a jar, there are gaps between those rocks. We want to build niche cars for local communities that fill those gaps, cars that aren't currently produced. Building a better minivan or pick-up truck, it's tough to compete, as you are taking on the establishment."

So, having added his parameters to the design - which included making a car big enough to be safe and one that would interest a community that isn't in an area hostile to car building, such as clean-crazy California - Jay looked at the finalists and made his decision to go with the Rally Fighter. But his problem was that, initially, no one took him seriously. "At the start, people just didn't pay attention. It was a huge disappointment to me. We couldn't convince buyers that we really would build the car."

The difference between then and now is that Local Motors now has almost 10 times the number of designs - 60,000 at the last count - and 7,000 design contributors instead of 600 first time out. Plus it has now fully embraced the unholy trinity of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The net result of that, plus stories like this one, is that, to date, 108 people have stumped up the surprisingly miniscule $99 deposit to have their name on the order list.

For the $50,000 (£35,000) asking price, what these people are going to build themselves over a couple of long weekends is a vehicle designed to appeal to the desert-racing, ‘Baja 1000' types who live in a five-hour-drive arc from the microfactory. Looking like the grandson of the 1996 Fiat Enduro concept car, it is a front-mid-engined, rear-wheel-drive, steel-space-framed weapon clothed in a carbon fibre and reinforced plastic shell.

Ninety-five per cent - by number - of parts are taken from existing parts bins (lots of Ford, some Mercedes, bit of Mazda and Honda), with Local Motors building the frame, the bodywork and the glass. It weighs just 1,497kg, or about the same as a 3-Series BMW, and has chassis dimensions that belong on a supercar: a wheelbase of 295cm and track of 208cm.

The suspension, which looks like it should be holding up a bridge somewhere, is the same mega-trick Fox set-up used on the rabid Ford Raptor pickup, with 46cm of travel at the front and 51cm at the rear, or roughly the same as most Trophy trucks.

The ride height is manually adjustable between two positions. And the engine, in this prototype, is a BMW diesel straight-six lifted from a 335d, but the first production versions are going to be fitted with a 430bhp petrol-powered LS3 V8 E-Rod engine, GM's customer-spec engine used by hot rodders nationwide. As much as I like the unlikely diesel option - and there will be another BMW one later, Jay confirms - the GM unit feels like it will be the right engine for a car like the US Rally Fighter. A car for red-blooded, petrol-powered thrill-seekers, if ever there was one.

And their families, if they're interested. Because as much as it looks like a two-seater off-road coupe, when it's finished the Fighter will be able to terrify up to four adults or two adults andthree kids all at the same time. The exterior isn't painted: for environmental and cost reasons, it's fashionably wrapped in film instead. The design that goes on that film is pretty much down to the owner, although Jay admits that there are limits. He's not going to allow anyone to slather a rubbish holiday snap down the side of their Rally Fighter before the car leaves the microfactory. "But I can't stop them once it leaves here..." he says ruefully.

Meanwhile, back in the air outside the factory on, or rather 4.5 metres above, the Local Motors test circuit, we are zeroing in on our first landing. Staring at the fast-approaching dirt and tarmac ahead of us, I brace myself for what looks like a hard touch-down, but there isn't any need. As the front wheels soak up their 46cm of plush travel, it feels like we are diving into a large pit of feathers, the only real drama being all the unsecured instruments sloshing around on the makeshift dashboard.

Relieved that we had made it through this proof-of-concept flight, which was almost as far as the Wright Brothers' first attempt, I relax my neck enough to look over at Jay. "What do you think?" he says with a smile. "I think we should go around again," I say over the din of the unsilenced concept's interior. "No, about the Rally Fighter," he says with a searching look. "Oh. Fantastic," I reply, one more voice of approval in a chorus that will echo around the US, and then the world, every time someone else has their first ride or drive in a Local Motors car they helped design and build themselves.

Local Motors can be found on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.